The Girl in White
by L van Am
Summary: "No one was really sure when it started. The only part of the story that the villagers agreed on was that the town was never the same after that girl moved in." Rated for paranoia. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer**: Nope, not mine. Nook won't sell. Neither will Nintendo.

* * *

No one was really sure when it started. Maybe it was when the bus pulled into town and a girl with dark hair got off. Maybe it was when she saw the dress at Redd's shop. Maybe it was when she put it on. No one knew for sure.

The only part of the story that the villagers agreed on was that the town was never the same after that girl moved in.

* * *

It was a nice day, sunny, but not too hot. Typical May weather. Nothing was supposed to be happening that day that anyone knew of. Just another lazy spring day.

And then Nook heard the rumble of the bus in the distance from his shop in the northwest part of town. Shortly afterwards, it pulled up at the stop and the doors opened to reveal a girl with big blue eyes and black hair.

Now, the villagers of this sleepy town were no strangers to humans - they had had a few human villagers in the past, well-loved helpers and jokers.

But they had never seen a human with hair that dark before.

Some of the villagers who had been living in the town at the time would swear that the sky went dark when the girl stepped off the bus. Others would call them nuts and swear to whichever poor animal was being regaled this time that the sky was perfectly normal, and the weird stuff didn't start happening until a few days later, at least.

Whenever it started, strange events took place in that town whenever the girl was near. Villagers would shiver with cold when she stood near them. Nook and the Able sisters reported an odd urge to clean their shops whenever she walked in. Even Pelly would have difficulty being her usual chipper self when the girl was nearby, and Phyllis was downright miserable. Or more so than usual, anyway.

Oddest of all, none of the villagers knew the girl's name. Even the nosy ones had no idea what the girl was called. Some suspected that Crazy Redd knew her, because they had seen her go into the kitsune's shop apparently without ever having been invited, but the villagers didn't know.

The strange events got stranger after the girl's third or fourth visit to the disreputable store, when she came back to town wearing a floaty, thin white dress.

Villagers swore that their doors would open in the middle of the night, even when they were locked; when they went to greet (or beat) the unwanted visitor, the door was locked and no one was there. Tom Nook reported that one morning he opened his shop and the floor was icy and the air cold enough to make him shiver in his fur. Sable had bags under her eyes, and her sister told people in hushed voices that she had nightmares of the night their parents died, despite the fact that Sable hadn't had a nightmare in years. Phyllis didn't show up for work three nights in a row; Pelly found her huddled up in bed, staring at a blank wall and muttering about ghosts.

And no one saw the girl for weeks after she came back from the city one day, until one villager decided that he couldn't sleep and it would be a nice night for a midnight stroll along the town's beach. He saw the girl, still wearing that white dress, standing on a slight rise just away from the beach, staring wistfully out at the dark waves.

She gave no indication that she heard the villager walking until she turned and fixed him with a terrifying stare. She wasn't glaring at him, nor frowning, nor making any kind of an expression; her face was terrifying in that it lacked all humanity, all emotion, and all recognition.

The villager fled that stare and lay awake in bed all night, the image of the girl haunting his thoughts.

The next morning, a storm was pouring rain down on the town. When the villager who had seen the girl the night before left his house, he felt an urge to go to the city for the first time in a long time. He followed the urge to the alley near Redd's shop, where the storm clouds made everything difficult to see.

Even so, the villager could see the glimpse of white fabric behind the dumpster.

* * *

The girl was buried on the hill where the villager had first seen her ghost, on a stormy day in an unmarked grave. No one ever visited the hilltop, but even so, the strange events which had gone on in the town stopped. Some said for a long time afterwards that if one went out in the middle of the night to that hilltop, they could still see the girl staring out at the ocean, but no one ever did.

* * *

**A/N**: I'm not really happy with how this turned out, but I was encouraged to post it, so I did. Anyway! Please review, whether or not you liked it!


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